Scenarios are a useful tool to explore possible futures of social-ecological systems. The number of scenarios has increased dramatically over recent decades, with a large diversity in temporal and spatial scales, purposes, themes, development methods, and content. Scenario archetypes generically describe future developments and can be useful in meaningfully classifying scenarios, structuring and summarizing the overwhelming amount of information, and enabling scientific outputs to more effectively interface with decision-making frameworks. The Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) faced this challenge and used scenario archetypes in its assessment of future interactions between nature and society. We describe the use of scenario archetypes in the IPBES Regional Assessment of Europe and Central Asia. Six scenario archetypes for the region are described in terms of their driver assumptions and impacts on nature (including biodiversity) and its contributions to people (including ecosystem services): business-as-usual, economic optimism, regional competition, regional sustainability, global sustainable development, and inequality. The analysis shows that trade-offs between nature's contributions to people are projected under different scenario archetypes. However, the means of resolving these trade-offs depend on differing political and societal value judgements within each scenario archetype. Scenarios that include proactive decision making on environmental issues, environmental management approaches that support multifunctionality, and mainstreaming environmental issues across sectors, are generally more successful in mitigating trade-offs than isolated environmental policies. Furthermore, those scenario archetypes that focus on achieving a balanced supply of nature's contributions to people and that incorporate a diversity of values are estimated to achieve more policy goals and targets, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi targets. The scenario archetypes approach is shown to be helpful in supporting science-policy dialogue for proactive decision making that anticipates change, mitigates undesirable trade-offs, and fosters societal transformation in pursuit of sustainable development.
Scenarios are a useful tool to explore possible futures of social-ecological systems. The number of scenarios has increased dramatically over recent decades, with a large diversity in temporal and spatial scales, purposes, themes, development methods, and content. Scenario archetypes generically describe future developments and can be useful in meaningfully classifying scenarios, structuring and summarizing the overwhelming amount of information, and enabling scientific outputs to more effectively interface with decision-making frameworks. The Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) faced this challenge and used scenario archetypes in its assessment of future interactions between nature and society. We describe the use of scenario archetypes in the IPBES Regional Assessment of Europe and Central Asia. Six scenario archetypes for the region are described in terms of their driver assumptions and impacts on nature (including biodiversity) and its contributions to people (including ecosystem services): Business-as-usual, economic optimism, regional competition, regional sustainability, global sustainable development, and inequality. The analysis shows that trade-offs between nature's contributions to people are projected under different scenario archetypes. However, the means of resolving these trade-offs depend on differing political and societal value judgements within each scenario archetype. Scenarios that include proactive decision making on environmental issues, environmental management approaches that support multifunctionality, and mainstreaming environmental issues across sectors, are generally more successful in mitigating tradeoffs than isolated environmental policies. Furthermore, those scenario archetypes that focus on achieving a balanced supply of nature's contributions to people and that incorporate a diversity of values are estimated to achieve more policy goals and targets, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on Biological Diversity ...
Scenarios are a useful tool to explore possible futures of social-ecological systems. The number of scenarios has increased dramatically over recent decades, with a large diversity in temporal and spatial scales, purposes, themes, development methods, and content. Scenario archetypes generically describe future developments and can be useful in meaningfully classifying scenarios, structuring and summarizing the overwhelming amount of information, and enabling scientific outputs to more effectively interface with decision-making frameworks. The Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) faced this challenge and used scenario archetypes in its assessment of future interactions between nature and society. We describe the use of scenario archetypes in the IPBES Regional Assessment of Europe and Central Asia. Six scenario archetypes for the region are described in terms of their driver assumptions and impacts on nature (including biodiversity) and its contributions to people (including ecosystem services): business-as-usual, economic optimism, regional competition, regional sustainability, global sustainable development, and inequality. The analysis shows that trade-offs between nature's contributions to people are projected under different scenario archetypes. However, the means of resolving these trade-offs depend on differing political and societal value judgements within each scenario archetype. Scenarios that include proactive decision making on environmental issues, environmental management approaches that support multifunctionality, and mainstreaming environmental issues across sectors, are generally more successful in mitigating trade-offs than isolated environmental policies. Furthermore, those scenario archetypes that focus on achieving a balanced supply of nature's contributions to people and that incorporate a diversity of values are estimated to achieve more policy goals and targets, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on Biological Diversity ...
The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research. ; publishedVersion
The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research.
The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research. ; EEA Santa Cruz ; Fil: Saarikoski, Heli. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia ; Fil: Primmer, Eeva. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia ; Fil: Saarela, Sanna-Riikka. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia ; Fil: Antunes, Paula. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research; Portugal ; Fil: Baró, Francesc. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institute of Environmental Science and Technology; España. Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute; España ; Fil: Berry, Pam. University of Oxford. Environmental Change Institute; Gran Bretaña ; Fil: Garcia Blanko, Gemma. Fundación Tecnalia Research & Innovation. Energy and Environment Division. Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia; España ; Fil: Gómez-Baggethun, Erik. Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Department of International Environment and Development Studies; Noruega. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA); Noruega ; Fil: Carvalho, Lawrence. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña ; Fil: Dick, Jan. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña ; Fil: Dunford, Robert. University of Oxford. Environmental Change Institute; Gran Bretaña. Lancaster Environment Centre. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña ; Fil: Hanzu, Mihail. Romanian National Institute for Research and Development in Silviculture; Rumania ; Fil: Harrison, Paula A. Lancaster Environment Centre. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña ; Fil: Izakovicova, Zita. Slovak Academy of Science. Institute of Landscape Ecology; Eslovaquia ; Fil: Kertész, Miklós. Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Centre for Ecological Research. Institute of Ecology and Botany; Hungría ; Fil: Kopperoinen, Leena. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia ; Fil: Köhler, Berit. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA); Noruega ; Fil: Langemeyer, Johannes. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institute of Environmental Science and Technology; España. Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute. Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability; España ; Fil: Lapola, David. Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Center for Meteorological and Climatic Studies Applied to Agriculture (CEPAGRI); Brasil ; Fil: Liquete, Camino. Joint Research Centre (JRC). European Commission; Italia ; Fil: Luque, Sandra. National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture; Francia ; Fil: Mederly, Peter. Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Eslovaquia ; Fil: Niemelä, Jari. University of Helsinki. Department of Environmental Sciences; Finlandia ; Fil: Palomo, Ignacio. University of the Basque Country. Basque Centre for Climate Change; España. ; Fil: Martínez Pastur, Guillermo José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Cientificas; Argentina ; Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina ; Fil: Preda, Elena. University of Bucharest. Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability; Rumania ; Fil: Priess, Joerg A. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research; Alemania ; Fil: Santos, Rui Ferreira Dos. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research; Portugal ; Fil: Schleyer, Christian. Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt. Institute of Social Ecology; Austria. University of Kassel. Section of International Agricultural Policy and Environmental Governance; Alemania ; Fil: Turkelboom, Francis. Research Institute for Nature and Forest; Bélgica ; Fil: Vadineanu, Angheluta. University of Bucharest. Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability; Rumania ; Fil: Verheyden, Wim. Research Institute for Nature and Forest; Bélgica ; Fil: Vikström, Suvi. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia ; Fil: Young, Juliette. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña ; Fil: Aszalós, Réka. Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research; Hungría
The authors wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. Most importantly, we want to acknowledge the participants in the case studies whose input was instrumental for this research project. The research was carried out in the project Operationalisation of Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services: From Concepts to Real-world Applications (OpenNESS), funded by the European Union FP7 (EC-308428). Heli Saarikoski and Eeva Primmer also want to acknowledge the support of the Academy of Finland (project 275772). ; The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research. ; publishersversion ; published
The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. ; Peer reviewed
Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 ; The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research.
The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research. ; publishedVersion
